


The Crimes and Conversations of Conduit Street

by MasterOfAllImagination



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M, and the angst necessary to balance it all out, but i like them enough to carry them over from ff.net to here, more fluff than you can shake a stick at, so not necessarily the best writing, some of my older work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-01-07 12:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1119715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterOfAllImagination/pseuds/MasterOfAllImagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles and one-shots from a prompt table centered around Moran and Moriarty; though in truth most are unashamedly MorMor.  RDJ!verse and canon; but no BBC!verse.  (Sigh.  I just alienated about 95% of my potential readers, didn't I?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

2\. Beautiful

It was a beautiful gun. Its mechanism was smooth, easy to work. The wood gleamed with the labors of half an hour of polishing. Its barrel was perfectly straight, the sight excellently aligned. The balance on the thing was better than a dancer’s. Moran itched to try it out, to load the airgun and fire at something, anything. His fingers twitched happily along its length. He showered it with the caresses a husband might give his wife and let out a small sigh.

Moriarty looked up from the armchair where he was reading a newspaper and said disdainfully,

“That is a gift, Moran, not a woman. Treat it as such.”

Moran could only smirk.

* * *

 

25\. Waiting

“Wait here,” Moriarty said, turning away to stroll briskly up the gravel driveway. He hadn’t even given Moran time to acquiesce. Then again, he already knew what his answer would be. Moran would never think of disobeying Moriarty.

Moran stuck his hands in his pockets and kicked a few pebbles around aimlessly, glancing up at the sprawling manor home every so often. He didn’t have a problem with waiting. Being able to wait was an integral part of being a hunter, except they didn’t call it waiting. They called it stalking.

Moran looked up with a grin as a strange thought entered his mind.

_Does that mean I’m stalking Moriarty then?_

* * *

 

52\. Knighthood

“He’s been nominated. _Again_ ,” Moriarty grumbled, throwing a newspaper down on the coffee table. Moran smirked over the rim of his coffee cup. He didn’t even have to glance at the paper to know to whom his partner was referring to.

“You mean Sherlock Holmes?” he said, choosing to be a bit dense.

“Of course I mean Holmes,” Moriarty practically snarled, throwing himself down in his customary armchair. “Certainly not the Pope. What does the Crown see in that sniveling, intellectually inferior copy of me?”

 _A law-abiding man_ , Moran was tempted to whisper under his breath.

“Sadly, not all people can see your genius as clearly as I can,” he settled with instead.

In the midst of Moriarty’s frustration the compliment almost went unnoticed, but only for a few seconds.

“If only everyone were as observant as you are,” Moriarty rejoined amusedly, despite himself a smile pulling at his mouth.

“He turned it down, I presume?”

“As he always does. Come, bring me that book on the shelf above your head there, I wish to distract myself from this distasteful occurrence.”

Moran did as he was told, handed the book over and returned to his coffee.

 _That’s another difference between you and him,_ he thought with a certain fondness. _You wouldn’t have turned it down._

* * *

 

37\. Hidden

Moran was gone on an assignment. Moriarty knew this because he’d seen him off himself. Yet he couldn’t prevent something of a furtive note entering his movements, couldn’t resist a glance over his shoulder to scan the flat they shared. It was deserted, as he knew it would be.

Shaking his momentary paranoia off, he withdrew a key to his desk from his pocket watch chain and headed over to his desk, unlocking a hidden side drawer. It slid open smoothly, baring its contents: several slips of paper, a cardboard folio the size of his palm, a luscious blue carbuncle that lay over its coiled gold chain, and several other keys. He withdrew the folio, careful not to disturb the other contents. He flipped it open.

Inside lay a photo of Moran in full military dress, taken sometime before his discharge from the army. Moriarty allowed his eyes to settle on it and drink in the familiar visage. One of his lackeys had brought it to him along with Moran’s file when he had first looked into recruiting the disgraced sniper.

It had just been a photo at the time. Now, however, it was something more.

And that was why Moriarty kept it hidden.

* * *

 

36\. Entwined

The train bumped along steadily, speeding them out of Paris and deeper into the Continent. Moran had sat across from Moriarty for a while in their private, first-class compartment, but after an hour or so he shifted to be next to his employer. Moriarty raised a single eyebrow in response, then went back to staring placidly out of the window.

His hand rested softly on the seat beside him, the other supporting his chin as he leaned his elbow upon the window sill. Moran found himself contemplating the other man’s fingers. They were short and uncalloused, as his profession allowed them to be. The fingers entranced him and began to consume his imagination. What would they feel like if he suddenly decided to grasp them with his own? What would they feel like if they were to brush across his cheek or slip around his waist?

They were dangerous fantasies, that he knew. But if they remained firmly entrenched in his mind, surely then he was safe?

Engrossed by his thoughts, Moran was oblivious to the fact that Moriarty was in fact watching the sniper’s reflection in the window and had been able to do much more than guess at the thoughts reflected in his features.

Only the smallest movement was necessary to contrive that his little finger should brush against Moran’s thumb. He would call watching the ex-army man react a social experiment, though it was not quite that simple.

Moran started slightly, but did not draw away his own hand. Instead he leaned back in his seat and cautiously moved his hand a bit farther towards Moriarty’s.

Moriarty grasped it the second it was close enough, firmly entwining their fingers around each other. Moran was not quite able to contain his reaction as he had been before, and he dared a quick glance sideways to gauge his employer’s emotions. As ever, his impassive face gave nothing away. It was if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred at all.

But if Moriarty wasn’t objecting, who was Moran to? A smile began to steal over his features, watched by Moriarty in his window with a slight satisfaction.

Maybe they can’t be blamed if they stayed that way all the way up until their train pulled into the station. After all, Moriarty was nothing but thorough in his experiments.

* * *

 

24\. Longing

In Conduit Street, Moran ran his hands along every surface of the second story flat they had shared, making soft trails in the thin film of dust that had gathered since he’d dismissed the maid. Every sight brought back memories, and with the memories pain. He stopped at the fireplace, head bowed, and clenched his fist on the mantelpiece. Tears were fighting hard to squeeze their way out of his eyes, but he’d cried enough at Reichenbach, enough to last him a whole lifetime, and he had promised himself it would not happen again. Nothing would ever affect him that way again.

Somewhere deep in Asia, Moriarty, hot on Holmes’s trail, withdrew the red notebook his hated nemesis had replaced the original with and took out the slightly dog-eared photograph that rested within the pages. Moran looked unsmilingly up at him from the old army photograph he had kept in his secret desk drawer for so long. He took a moment to thank himself, once more, for whatever instinct had told him to bring it along before they made the trip to Reichenbach, and for the stupid, impulsive decision to double back to the hotel and retrieve it after his near-disastrous encounter with Sherlock Holmes.

It represented everything he was fighting for now. He couldn’t go home until he had killed Holmes. He wouldn’t let himself. His obsession had reached new heights since what he had come to refer to as his Fall, and the obsession would not let him go. It also meant that he could not see Moran again until he had dealt with Holmes.

Obsession was hard to combat, but one of its staunchest resistors is longing: and Moriarty’s longing for Moran fought a stiff battle, and it was at last beginning to gain the upper hand.

* * *

 

100\. Destiny

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” he swore aloud, scrambling down the rocky slope so fast he nearly lost his own life. There was no way Moriarty was dead, no damn way on that green earth that he had fallen to his death from three hundred feet above.

The water rushed by at incredibly fast speeds, even at the distance Moran was from its base.

“Moriarty!” he called over the fall’s distant roar of thunder. “Moriarty!” he tried again, louder, scorching his lungs with cold air and spray as he took a deep breath.

There was no response. Had he really expected one? His chest was surprisingly tight, his throat uncomfortably choked, and it took a moment to realize that it was not the river spray making his eyes water but his own tears.

“ _Moriarty_!” he screamed again. And again. “ _Professor! Where are you?_ ” He turned in short circles on the rocky bank, hysteria slowly mounting and taking hold of his senses. “This is no time for your games!”

He chuckled then, a mad sound. The only sound to be heard except for the dying echoes of his scream and the rush of water. “Where are you?” he cried after listening to the silence, his voice feeble and choked.

Then the horrid truth swept over him like the water over the stones in the riverbed, merciless and undeniable: James Moriarty had fallen. The great professor was no more.

“ _James_ ,” he breathed. “Oh, James. Oh my dear James.” He fell to his knees, his head dropping into his hands as he wept great shaking sobs of helplessness and frustration and anger as it all came crashing down upon him. Colonel Sebastian Moran was no more. No more than a lone man, screaming a name to the empty sky under an unforgiving waterfall, ever destined to be unanswered.

* * *

 

1\. First Impression

The East-End pub was dingy and ill-lit, smelt of cigarette smoke and other less pleasant things, and was owned by a barman of at least as shady character as his patrons. In short, a perfectly typical example of the seedier variety of a London pub. It didn’t take Moriarty long to pick out his mark, a tall ginger bearded man slumped at the far stool, lost in his drink.

He had all the classic signs of desperation. Moriarty could see them in his posture, in the way he clutched his mug, in the circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, the untrimmed beard that Moriarty could tell was usually well kempt by the way its owner kept scratching at it.

As first impressions went, Moriarty was not all too struck by his prospective new employee. He seemed a common type, full of vile impulses and not possessed of much brain power. However, the stories brought back to him by his cronies told otherwise, and as he had already come all the way down to the pub he might as well make the effort.

Switching his stick deftly from his right hand to his left he advanced on the man and took the adjacent stool, extending his newly free hand to the man.

Mr. Ginger Beard did nothing but stare at it for a moment, drink-fogged reflexes slow to respond, and when he finally did react it was only to say “Whhhrroeerr yoouh?”

“Professor James Moriarty,” he announced, withdrawing his hand. “And I’m here to make you an offer, Colonel Moran: an offer that you will not be able to refuse.”

* * *

 

40\. Heart

The wound was bleeding profusely, but the man who’d fired the shot had already disappeared, most likely running for his life like the coward that he was. Cowardly, and an uncommonly lucky shot.

Moran tore his eyes away from the retreating figure just in time to see Moriarty’s look of shock and fear as he crumpled to the ground. He rushed to his side, but it was already too late: his life was draining fast.

A thousand thoughts flitted through Moran’s mind, of how to find help, what to do to stop the blood that was seeping everywhere, what to say, what to do, before his army training took over and he could calmly assess the wound. It was fatal, right to the heart. Moriarty’s breathing was already labored, his eyes staring unfixed at the ceiling. Yet an overwhelming urge welled from his own heart, overrode his training and flitted to his lips, and he let it free.

“I love you,” he whispered desperately.

“I… know…” Morarty gasped, blood gurgling from his lips. “It was always… your one… weakness.”

His eyes grew wide and blinked furiously a couple of times, then his chest ceased to rise and fall or move at all, and Moran knew he was dead.

* * *

 

5\. Risk

The professor’s office at the university was deserted when Moran slipped in quietly-- except for the owner himself. Moriarty stood facing the window, his back to Moran, and did not turn even when he heard the lock click closed on the door. Moran walked softly over to him and slipped his arms around the professor’s waist, stealing a chaste kiss on his lips when Moriarty turned in his arms.

“Not here, Moran,” Moriarty chastised in annoyance. “We agreed that we would take no risks.”

“Why not? There’s no one around.”

“I haven’t gotten where I am today by not being careful. You would do well to remember that,” he said with finality, shrugging off Moran’s embrace. Moran, however, would not be deterred so easily.

He stepped nimbly up behind his employer and planted a light kiss on his cheek before bouncing off to the door, leaving Moriarty no time to respond.

“You’ll miss me,” he threw over his shoulder playfully as he unlocked the door and left.

A few seconds later, Moriarty was forced to admit ruefully to himself that he would indeed.


	2. Part 2

15\. Kiss

"There is nothing you can hide from me, Moran," Moriarty said lowly, almost threateningly.

"You'd be surprised the things you don't know," Moran returned, slightly shocked at his own insubordination. Nevertheless, he was too riled up to care. He hadn't even addressed him as "sir" or "professor," something he had never forgotten up until then.

His defiance enraged the professor. Moriarty advanced on Moran, forcing him backwards until he hit up against the grimy brick wall of the alleyway.

"I would beg to differ," he snarled, his face inches away. They stood immobile, sizing each other up, waiting for the other to back down, an unstoppable force that had hit an immovable object. It occurred to Moran to wonder if Moriarty really meant what he said. Had he unraveled his last secret? The thing that had ruined his military career, the burden that he had cursed and loved his whole life?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

He closed their distance suddenly and pressed a passion-fueled kiss to Moriarty's lips, praying and hoping and dreading that he would return it. For the most awful of moments, Moriarty did not move a muscle.

But the moment passed, and Moriarty kissed back, suddenly lost in wild abandonment brought on by the most passionate kiss he'd ever received. His hands went carefully to Moran's hair and waist, then less carefully shoved the other man firmly up against the wall.

Moran kissed back with equal ferocity. He had had no idea the professor  _wanted_ him that badly. Almost as much as he wanted the professor, he was willing to wager.

Moriarty could barely break himself away for long enough to gasp out, "Perhaps you'd like to rethink your earlier statement?"

"Mmm," Moran growled inbetween kisses. "You're bloody omnipotent, that's what I think."

"Ensure you don't forget it in the future-"

Moran cut him off sharply by joining their lips together again. After that, it was physically impossible to continue conversation- nor did either of them care to.

* * *

35\. Rest

Moriarty set the gramophone carefully whirring to life. Classical opera drifted out of the bronze contraption, filling the room with rich, tenor notes sung in a foreign language filled with vibrato. He crossed the room to return to his chair, the starlight streaming from the man-high, ten foot wide windows briefly silhouetting him.

He sat calmly, fingers steepled, the closest expression to peacefulness Moran ever saw on his employer's face save for when he indulged in his "little habit," as he so often referred to it. The sniper himself, sunk low in an armchair across from Moriarty's, had just been drifting off, but he was stirred awake when Moriarty added his own voice to the gramophone's. He was singing quietly, barely loud enough to distinguish over the record.

Moran let the sound lull him to sleep, strangely content in an armchair in his employer's flat, quite oblivious to Moriarty's watchful yet protective gaze. He followed Moran into the arms of Morpheus soon after.

* * *

73\. Stone

It was a cold January day. The graveyard was deserted save for one man trudging slowly between the long lines of graves. The wind rustled the flowers placed by well-kept plots, and the weeds that grew by the less fortunate ones.

The man stopped in front of a plain stone grave, unique only for its solitary spot under an old spreading oak tree. A cold breeze played with the wildflowers he held slackly in his hand, teasing some loose and blowing them away.

The grave was still too recent to have grown its own covering of weeds, but it was an unavoidable fate. After that day, the man knew that no one would return to tend it.

For the man who lay below the plain stone grave, marked only with a name, had been hated by all, feared by all, and loathed by all, with only two exceptions. One had beaten him and sent him to his death. The other had loved him and now stood before it to lay down his offering of flowers.

A pathetic offering, when he considered all that he had once laid down: his life, his loyalty, his courage, his love. But it was all he had left.

"Goodbye," he said softly, his whisper mingling with the wind.

He had hoped to leave the weight that had plagued his heart for so long behind in the graveyard, but it only seemed to weigh more heavily afterwards. Like a stone in his chest, a broken-off piece of the grave marker bearing the simple name "MORIARTY."

* * *

45\. Wound

It was a terrible wound, and he would have to live with it for the rest of his life.

The fall from Reichenbach had broken his leg in two places and shattered the ribs on his right side. The incompetent Swiss doctor who'd attended him had done a butcher's job of setting the ribs, and as a result they hadn't healed properly. Now they pained him almost constantly.

The leg had turned out slightly better, but when you are obliged to swim through raging currents after falling three hundred feet and then hike two miles to seek medical care, one does not do any favors for an injury. The fancy walking stick Moriarty had occasionally been wont to carry was now a permanent feature of his dress.

Wherever Holmes was, he hoped he had suffered the same or worse. It would save him time later on when he finally caught up with him.

* * *

42\. Eye

"An eye for an eye," he muttered to himself as he aligned the sight of his air gun. The same one Moriarty had given him all that time ago. It was fitting that a bequest from his dead benefactor should be the item that would avenge him, at least in part.

He hadn't been able to track down Holmes, the other half of the duo to blame for Moriarty's death, but he now had Watson in the sight of his gun. Completely at his mercy. And he wouldn't be missing this chance.

His only regret was that Watson would not know the purpose his death would serve. But he supposed the role of an assassin had always been thankless, unnoticed by rote, and why should that change now?

He took one last look to be sure of his aim.

Moran's finger tightened on the trigger.

The drapes surrounding the window Watson stood at fluttered.

A body fell with the strike of the bullet, but when the curtain drew aside again, Watson still stood.

The doctor was shaking another figure violently, a woman who had suddenly appeared slumped against the broken window. His shaking dislodged her, leaving a smear of blood on the glass. Briefly Moran caught the profile of his unintended victim: the shapely features and blonde hair of a woman, most likely none other than Mrs. Mary Watson.

He swallowed thickly as he realized what he had done and who he had shot.

With a little more force than was necessary Moran disassembled his gun and packed it away, leaving the rooftop he had shot from quickly. He tried to tell himself it didn't matter. She had gone to her husband's side at the wrong time, he had done nothing. Besides, this way Watson would suffer more. Wasn't that what he had wanted to do? Cause suffering?

The guilt which had sprung up so unexpectedly and unwelcome was hard to stomach, but he forced it back down, covering it with lies like he always did with difficult truths.

 _This way he'll suffer more for it,_  he repeated to himself.  _It doesn't matter._

But she was innocent. She hadn't deserved it. Just like Moriarty. Neither of them deserved to die, it was the  _doctor_ who should be bleeding-

Then why hadn't he gone after him? Taken a second shot when he was off his guard?

Because he had failed to achieve the release he had thought avenging Moriarty would bring.

Because in his heart of hears, he knew he had done wrong.

And because he knew he could always try again when he found Holmes.

* * *

79\. Dying

Moriarty coughed, his thin frame wracked by the motion. Grey hair fell into his face, which Moran immediately pushed backwards. He settled on the edge of the sickbed, a worried expression on his face.

"Cough's getting worse?" he asked gently. Moriarty nodded. "The doctor said it'll be worse at the end."

"Don't-" Moriarty wheezed, grabbing Moran's hand. Another coughing fit seized him before he could continue.

"What is it old fellow? Here, have some water," Moran offered, lifting the glass from the bedside table. Moriarty waved it away, and Moran smiled.  _Stubborn to the last,_  he thought.

"Don't- fuss over me," he finished. Moran smiled softly. It broke his heart to see the man he'd loved for over twenty years dying in front of his eyes. He'd been dreading this exact moment since Moriarty had been diagnosed with tuberculosis little less than a year ago.

"Bet you never thought you'd die in your bed, did you?" He said softly. "Not with the lives we led for so long."

"After Switzerland, I believed myself invincible," Moriarty commented, and Moran half thought he was serious for a moment before a wry smile cracked his dry lips. "You're still young, however. Plenty of time left for you to be mauled by a tiger, shot in the back, stabbed by a jealous lover…" he fell silent, words too much of an effort.

"You know you're the only man I've ever loved," Moran said.  _Or will_ , he added mentally. "I knew we'd grow old together. If you had asked me to place a wager on where we would meet our ends, though, I'd have had bet my money on being in a gaol cell for sodomy…" he said, pulling a mock-thoughtful face. Moriarty managed a smile, appreciative of his lover's attempts at levity. But there were things that he had to say before the damned disease took his last rattling breaths away from him.

"If you have…." Moriarty paused, breathing heavily. "… have the choice of your death… choose something… something…." Coughs rendered his last word incoherent

"Nice?" Moran supplied, scoffing. "I don't intend to," he half muttered, pulling something out of his inner jacket pocket. It was a compact pistol, fully loaded. Moran spun the barrel absently, listening to it click into place. "Forget romance. Forget loyalty. Forget sentimentality. Forget all of that for a minute, and before you say anything-" he preempted, having noticed the slight widening of the aged professor's eyes that was as close as he ever came to betraying shock- "I have something to say."

He leaned forward, grasping Moriarty's hand in both of his own, his lined eyes softening. "We've loved each other for twenty years and change. You were my boss, my employer, my lover. And God help me my whole fucking world. Why, in the name of all the demons in hell, would I want to live without you?"

The dying man's eyes found and focused on Moran's, saw the sincerity there, and nodded.

"If this is truly how you feel… I don't think there is any reason I should discourage you, nor any way I could." Moran nodded, and leaned back, but Moriarty's thin hand shot out and pulled him back.

"Indulge a dying man. Lie down beside me. Hold me like you did when we were young."

Nestled into Moriarty's arms, so close he felt every cough as his own, they both felt thirty years younger again, transported back to a time where their whispered "I love you"'s were not a goodbye but a promise of the future.

An hour later, the great Professor James Moriarty, Napoleon of Crime, breathed his last.

A gunshot rang out a moment afterwards.

Then all was silent in the flat.

* * *

22\. Home

Home.

Hell if that wasn't a funny word.

He'd been up and down the breadth of the world, and double that distance through Africa, but he'd never called the savannah home, or the frozen Himalayas, or even his native Britain.

He'd been raised in a fine manor, and taught from infancy to think of the place as that famous word. Moran grew out of the habit quickly.

So it made him wonder how all of a sudden the Conduit Street flat he shared with James Moriarty had come to take on the moniker. He'd caught himself thinking about it that way just the other day-  _I'd better get home, Moriarty'll be waiting._

 _They do say home is where the heart is_ , Moran thought as he stepped into their shared sitting room. Moriarty glanced up from a solemn contemplation of his steepled hands and graced him with a quick smile as he entered.

Ah. That must be it.

* * *

57\. Care

There had been twelve of them.

Big, aggressive brutes carrying truncheons.

Moran had emptied his Webley into four of the sods, and knifed at least two, but they just kept coming.

After all, twelve against one was hardly fair odds.

They beat him badly- one of Moran's worst, and that was saying something- but they kept him alive.

The biggest one cracked his knuckles and bent down to whisper in Moran's ear.

"Bring this message back to your master, you mongrel pup: no one messes with the O'Clary gang and gets away with it. Not even Moriarty."

Moran would have spit in the man's eye had he not been currently seeing eight of them, or if he had any spit left in his mouth that wasn't currently congealed with blood.

They walked out of the alley, leaving Moran alone.

Moran limped his way back to Conduit Street, nursing several bruised ribs and a broken arm, a jaw that felt dislocated and two black eyes that were already swelling up. It was all he could do to stay standing, even when he eventually reached Conduit Street and finally allowed himself to slump against the door frame of their flat.

He had never hated stairs more.

Moriarty fairly flew to his side, an expression Moran would have labeled as "worry" on his face if he hadn't seen it through a haze of pain.

Any other idiot would have asked "Are you alright?" or even "Are you hurt?" But those stupid enough to ask rarely realized how rhetorical and useless those questions were. Moriarty, no shade of idiot on any scale, let light, searching fingers trace his wounded second-in-command's face and body, assessing damage.

"Funny, Prof," Moran mumbled. "If I didn't know you better I'd say you care about my wellbeing."

"Don't be absurd," Moriarty said, even taking the trouble to scoff. "I am simply ensuring my property is not irreparably damaged."

"Not dead yet, sir."

Moriarty grunted, apparently satisfied with his search, and rang for the maid.

"Summon a doctor," he commanded her curtly.

In the meantime, he couldn't just leave Moran lying on the floor, so he helped him gently to a chair, one arm wrapped firmly around Moran's shoulders.

That was when Moran finally passed out.

The doctor came quickly and had Moran bandaged and set on the way to healing in record time without ever needing a sedative. Between Moriarty and the doctor, they lifted Moran into his own bed to rest, and the doctor took his leave. Moriarty, however, lingered.

"I do care for you, my dear Moran," Moriarty said softly, brushing the hair back from the sleeping man's forehead. "But I will never allow you to see it."

He pressed a light, cold kiss to Moran's forehead and then left the room, hands behind his back, lost in thought.

* * *

31\. Cold

It was cold at the top of Reichenbach Falls as Moran and Moriarty waited for Holmes to appear.

"You should take your position, Moran," Moriarty informed him.

"We've still got time. Besides, its bloody cold up there- at least we're out of the wind down here."

Moriarty said nothing. He was pacing slightly and rubbing his hands together- he was by no means immune to the cold that had Moran stamping his feet and furiously chafing his arms.

In fact, Moran looked absolutely miserable, and Moriarty found a small speck of pity growing in his heart.

He walked over to his second in command, shrugging one arm out of his heavy overcoat as he did so. He draped it around the both of them and wound his now-free arm around Moran's waist, pulling him tight to his side.

Moran's eyes lit up in thanks. Slowly he let his head drop down so that his forehead and the professor's gently touched.

It would be the last time they held each other for a long time.

* * *

32\. Kindness

The street rat cowered in its filthy nest of blankets, hands raised protectively over a face that was too dirty to determine gender. Its whimpers, however, were definitely female.

"Please, sir," she croaked, her pathetic thin fingers shaking, "I ain't no trouble, 'onest."

Moran hesitated, leaning over her with his knife drawn, and contemplated granting her request. What trouble could a lowly brat cause? He hadn't wanted the job anyways. It was his third time out on Moriarty's orders, and he'd been told to kill her whole family. Some client wanted their petty revenge.

Sighing, he put his bloody knife away and backed off from the poor thing. A little kindness wouldn't hurt him, but he sure as hell wasn't going to be making a habit of it.


	3. Part 3

92\. Water

The brigand pushed Moran over the edge of the crowded bridge with alarming ease and took off sprinting through the late night crowd. Moriarty practically threw himself over the bridge as well as he rushed to the edge, craning his neck to search for his sniper in the dark water.  
  
“Oh, _damn_ ,” Moriarty swore. Which he never did, unless he was very, very angry. He glanced around semi-calmly at the gaping onlookers, some of whom were pointing at the river and gossiping to one another.  
  
“Isn’t anyone going to _help_?” he exclaimed exasperatedly. He got a few annoyed glances and several guilty ones. Obviously not, then.  
  
Someone had gone for the police, but they wouldn’t come in time. Resigned, Moriarty swept his hat off, set aside his stick and shrugged off his jacket. The shoes were kicked off last as he climbed up onto the stone rail of the bridge, mentally calculating where the tide would have carried Moran. With a short breath and a perfectly executed dive he entered the muddy water of the Thames.  
  
When he finally managed to drag a spluttering, sodden and heavy former army colonel out of the chilly water, the onlookers had all but vanished.  
  
“Look what you’ve done, Moran,” Moriarty complained loudly. “I’ve ruined my best opera dress.”  
  
Moran was still coughing up water. “Bloody maniac!” he fumed when he had his breath back. “You know I can’t swim!”  
  
“That’s why I jumped in after you, you idiot.”  
  
Moran stared at him with his mouth open for a moment, gaping like the fish he had nearly found a permanent home amongst.  
  
“I-- thanks,” he finally said sheepishly.  
  
Moriarty gave him a sidelong look. “You’re welcome,” he returned curtly.

* * *

17\. Magic

The gypsy’s tent was draped in velvety fabrics once lush and lavish but now ragged and faded. An overpowering incense pervaded the inside, clogging Moriarty’s nose. He was strongly urged to press his handkerchief to his nose to filter it out, but did not wish to offend the wizened old crone who sat across a rickety table from him, intent on reading his fortune.  
  
 _In a few more minutes, Moran will have completed his work, and we can leave this horrible gypsy camp and this deserted stretch of countryside behind,_ he reminded himself. Sacrifices for his work were often required, and this was one of them.  
  
The woman was prattling on about signs in his palm and lines in his cards-- or perhaps the other way around-- and other esoteric paraphernalia Moriarty couldn’t have cared less about. He put on a vaguely interested face and nodded when required.  
  
“Ah!” she exclaimed, mysteriously. Obviously expecting a response, Moriarty duly replied,  
  
“What do you see?” in a reasonable imitation of someone who was actually curious.  
  
“A man,” she informed him. _How delightfully vague_ , Moriarty thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. If the half-blind old lady had any real fortune telling skills, she would have figured out by now that he was a professor and a scientist, and therefore firmly disbelieved in magic of any kind.  
  
“A man who will have great impact on your life,” she elaborated slowly. “We must consult the cards for more information.” With great gravitas she pulled out a dog-eared tarot deck and handed it to Moriarty, indicating that he should shuffle them.  
  
She cut the deck when he was done and made a great show of laying down four cards, gasping theatrically as she drew the last one.  
  
“The cards tell me this man is very close to you. He has influence you know not of, and shall bring great ruin-- no, _you_ shall bring great ruin to _him_ if you are not careful. For you see, you shall share a bond: a bond of….” She trailed off, laying a finger on one of the cards: The Lovers, inverted.  
  
“ _Devotion_ ,” she emphasized.  
  
Moriarty almost scoffed. He’d never had a relationship with any man that “devotion” would even come close to describing. His mind drifted to Moran, wondering when he would be done so he could leave the gypsy’s tent. He had to admire his hired gun’s loyalty, unquestioningly accompanying him to the countryside on this errand with no information whatsoever besides that his master bid it.  
  
He halted his train of thought for a moment, seized by a sudden doubt, and leaned closer to the gypsy over the table.  
  
“Could you… perhaps… tell me more of this man?” he asked, at once disgusted with himself for his curiosity and overcome by it.  
  
The fortune teller smiled knowingly and readjusted one of her sequined shawls.  
  
“Of course. The cards also tell me that there is love in your future, but only if you choose to seek it. The only thing that stands in your way is a secret shared and a mystery waiting to be unraveled.”  
  
“That is all very well and good, but can you tell me about the _man_?” Moriarty repeated, a bit annoyed.  
  
“I just did,” the crone said, almost wryly.  
  
Moriarty leaned back again, slightly stunned, thoughts drifting inexorably back to Moran and slotting everything she had said into place in regards to his second in command.  
  
Perhaps some of her guesses were hitting a bit too close to home for comfort.  
  
He stood abruptly, bidding her a curt “Good day, Madame,” and was just about to sweep the curtain flap of her tent open and breathe fresh air once more when the old wench turned around.

“You leave because you hear the truth. Once you have left this place, do not run from it in life as well.”  
Moriarty didn’t move, one hand still holding the curtain aside.  
  
“Good day, Madame,” he repeated, and walked blinking out into the sun.

* * *

74\. Exposed

“I swear, miss, the master is entertaining women in his flat.”  
  
“Marcy! How dare you make such accusations of our good employer! Mr. Moriarty and Mr. Moran are perfectly respectable gentleman, and it is not your place to spy on them.” The matronly housekeeper tried to bustle her young maid back to her duties, but the girl stood firm.  
  
“I can prove it! There’s a woman in their drawing room at this moment!”  
  
As a good, respectable housekeeper, she gave her tenants a certain degree of privacy… but was not above indulging her own curiosity.  
  
  
“Very well. Show me this woman.”  
  
Marcy dragged the housekeeper up to the second story flat and knelt at the keyhole, from which unmistakable sounds were issuing. When the housekeeper took her turn, she heard fast breathing and muffled moans, and then a thump as if a body were collapsing on the settee.  
  
Her sensitive ears were highly offended, and she gave the young maid’s a sharp boxing, admonishing her,  
“They are perfectly at liberty to entertain whomever they wish, as long as they keep up the rent! Now I want you to stop nosing into their business and get back to the work I pay you for.”  
  
“You pay me but a pittance,” the maid muttered bitterly under her breath. “Yes ma’am,” she said, louder, and straightened up. As the two women were about to go their separate ways down the hallway, a thought occurred to the maid.  
  
“You know, I’ve never seen any women enter nor leave the flat…”  
  
The housekeeper was also given pause at this.  
  
“I’ve let no one in today… have you?”  
  
“No, ma’am,” the maid responded.  
  
They both stood staring at each other. A vague suspicion entered their minds at the same time.  
  
“Certainly not!” the housekeeper cried, scandalized.  
  
“Never! I won’t believe it!” the maid echoed.  
  
“Perfectly respectable,” the housekeeper repeated.  
  
“Assuredly.”  
  
Reassured with their own denials, they went back to their duties, and none were the wiser to the mystery woman behind the door-- or, perhaps, lack thereof.

* * *

28\. Embrace

Moriarty lay a warm hand on Moran’s chest, and lingered there.  
  
“My loyal tiger,” he murmured. “My dear, devoted, loyal tiger.”  
  
“Moriarty!” Moran protested weakly as the professor drew him, quite unexpectedly, into a heartfelt embrace. Was the professor sick? Addled with brain fever? Perhaps an impostor?  
  
He drew back and held him at arm’s length, pressing the back of his hand to the professor’s forehead. It was shockingly warm.  
  
“Are you alright, sir?” he asked anxiously, giving Moriarty as slight shake.  
  
“Never better,” he insisted, drawing a hand down Moran’s cheek caressingly. Then, very suddenly he lurched forward into Moran in a dead faint. Moran lowered him to the ground carefully, placing a hand behind his neck to support his head, but when he did he felt something sharp protruding: a small poison-tipped dart.  
  
Moran looked up quickly, but whoever had shot it was long gone.

Later, when the professor had recovered, he denied all remembrance of his actions, and Moran attributed them to the little dart. However, many months later, when Moriarty let slip a term of endearment to Moran-- calling him his “loyal tiger”-- and was met with laughter, Moran came to the conclusion that the professor was a very good liar indeed.

* * *

94\. Reunion

A ghost stood in his doorway.  
  
But no-- it _couldn’t_ be a ghost.  
  
Ghosts don’t age or grow haggard. Ghosts don’t need to lean heavily on walking sticks.  
  
But it also wasn’t possible that James Moriarty now said to him simply, in a voice long absent but never quite forgotten,  
  
“Moran.”  
  
In a daze, Moran got up from his usual armchair in their old flat. He’d left Moriarty’s untouched. Not out of sentimentality, mind you, but respect. A memorial for a body that was never found.  
  
Moran walked over to Moriarty and punched him squarely in the jaw. No words, no reprimands, just the first action that had popped into his head as a result of the blood that had begun to boil in rage in his veins.  
  
“That’s for three years of lies, you bloody bastard,” Moran spat at the man now on the floor. Moriarty drew a hand across his cheek and glared murder up at Moran, scrabbling with his walking stick to find purchase so he could stand again. However, Moran extended an unexpected hand and helped the professor up.  
  
“And this is for finally coming back,” Moran announced.  
  
He drew him into a hard, passionate kiss, and he didn’t let the professor go for a long time, even when the other man tried to pull away. Moriarty still looked murderous, but was now less likely to act on it.  
  
“You’ll tell me everything this time.” It was a demand, non negotiable. Reparations for three years of silence.  
  
“Certainly.”  
  
“Come in, then. I’ve kept your chair warm for you. The housekeeper was just bringing me up some coffee, I’ll have her bring up some tea as well.  
  
Moriarty settled down in his dark colored armchair by the window, wincing slightly.  
It was like he’d never left.

* * *

72\. Shattered Pieces

The bottle shattered on the grimy wood floor of the pub, spraying glass shards and amber liquid.  
  
“You gunna pay fer that?” The barkeep asked, mildly annoyed. Moran didn’t hear. He had sunk his head in his shaking hands and tuned out the rest of the world.  
  
The alcohol had been supposed to help him. Put it all on hold. It had done its job in the past. Now, however, it was a different story.  
  
He stood up. His boots cracked over broken glass when he tried. Stumbling steps pitched him up against the bar, earning him a sharp pain in his side that would be a bruise in the morning.  
  
He walked out of the dingy place without paying for the half-full bottle he’d dropped. It reminded him too much of what Moriarty’s death had done to him: scattering the remnants of himself to the wind, just like those glass shards all over the floor.

* * *

80\. Rescue

“C’mon you, out. Your bail’s been posted,” said the surly police officer.  
  
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Moran replied as he unlocked his cell. He stretched his legs, days of inactivity giving his muscles cramps. Curious, he pressed his luck with bad tempered man and asked,  
“Who put up the money then?”  
  
“Dunno. Some bloke with a beard. Hightailed it right after.”  
  
Moriarty frowned at the unknown identity of his rescuer. Who would bail him out? He had no friends at the Bagatelle club, no chums among his old army pals, nor any school alums who’d do him the favor. Only one person had ever come to his aid in the past, and it was impossible now… unless…  
  
 _Well I’ll be damned. Moriarty’s back from the dead._

* * *

75\. Madness

“This is madness!” he cried over the roar of the mob. Moran flashed him a devilish smile, seized his hand and started to pull him through the crowd.  
  
“No, this is genius!” he countered, heading for the makeshift stage in the crowded square. “What better way to stop a fighting mob than to give them a common cause?”  
  
“I’d prefer a cause that wouldn’t land us in _gaol_!” Moriarty yelled.  
  
“Your plan failed. Now it’s time to try mine.”  
  
With much stumbling and tripping, they climbed onto the stage and faced the crowd. One or two people looked up from the fighting.  
  
“Ready?” Moran asked, facing Moriarty and grasping his upper arms firmly, as much to brace the man for what they were about to do as to make sure he wouldn’t run away.  
  
“As much as I’ll ever be,” he said with a grimace.  
  
They crashed their lips together and Moriarty folded Moran into his arms, kissing energetically and very illegally for all the world to see.  
  
There were a lot more than a couple of people looking at them now. One by one, all the members of the protesting mob grew silent, dropped whatever improvised weapon they were holding, and stared synchronously at the stage.  
  
Moriarty and Moran broke apart, still in each other’s arms, to survey the crowd and the results of their distraction. Also, to survey the policeman pushing through the mob towards them, angrily brandishing a truncheon… no, better make that two policemen… now three… four… five!  
  
“ _Fuck_ ,” Moran swore. “Run!”  
  
Moriarty didn’t need to be told twice.

* * *

9\. Fight

His disguise was beautiful for its simplicity: an old overcoat, a stoop, and a ratty cane turned Moriarty into an old crippled man. A shadowy hat and scratchy voice perfected the look to a tee. Even when Moran walked into the sitting room, he was forced to do a double take at his transformed boss.  
  
“Come, Moran. We are going out.” Moran nodded obediently, asking no questions, and together they left the flat and took to the street.  
  
Moran wasn’t sure what-- if any-- angle Moriarty had with his disguise. Sometimes he liked to pull off a crime or try on a new identity _just because he could_. It was usually in between their clients’ jobs and when Moriarty had no pressing concerns at the university. Then his great mind would become bored, and Moran knew only too well how much he rebelled at stagnation.  
  
They took a turn down a shady alley, heading for the East End. Unconsciously Moran patted his jacket to reassure himself that his Webley was there. But, to his surprise, it was _not_. He didn’t like going out without a gun, but they had left so suddenly--  
  
“Lookee here, fellas,” a high Cockney voice whined, coming seemingly from nowhere. “We got ourselfs some… eh… lost travelers?”  
  
Adrenaline was already rushing to Moran’s head as a companion to the thug appeared out of the shadows. A third blocked off the exit to the alleyway. Unconsciously Moran and the professor drew back-to-back.  
  
“C’mon, then. All yer money, eh? Otherwise--” the Cockney man made an all-too-suggestive gesture with his hand. Moran, seething at the absence of his Webley, clenched his fists and prepared himself for a fight. No way the professor would give in to a few low life _crooks_ like these.  
  
“All right there, young man,” Moriarty wheezed in the old man’s voice, “Calm yer knickers. We haven’t got much, but it’s all yours…” Moriarty reached into his overcoat and started to pull something out.  
  
“Whoah there,” the Cockney-- obviously the leader-- forestalled. “Let me just take that…”  
  
He moved closer to Moriarty, obviously anticipating a hidden weapon, and that ultimately proved his downfall.  
  
Quick as a flash, Moriarty drew something that glinted from the knob of his cane and with one whip sent blood spurting over the cobbles. Moran was no slower on the uptake, dashing down to the end of the alley to deal with the man who blocked their way. By the time he had felled him with his fists, Moriarty had already dispatched the other man and was now standing up straight, disguise forgotten, and wiping blood off of the hidden stiletto onto his overcoat.  
  
“Clean this up, Moran,” he said, businesslike, as though referring to a spilt sherry.  
  
Moran had known Moriarty could fight, but he hadn’t known that he could fight like _this_!  
  
“Good show, sir,” he said appreciatively, one fighter to another. Moriarty raised an eyebrow at him and said,  
  
“Do I note a tone of surprise? I should remind you that I survived many years on my own by my own abilities before you came along as my veritable bodyguard.”  
  
And abilities they were-- as he dragged the bodies out of view, he noted a neatly cut throat and a punctured lung. Efficient, one-stroke kills. Moriarty wasn’t someone he’d want to encounter unarmed down a blind alleyway. Too bad the three thugs had learned that the hard way.

* * *

48\. Betrayal

He hadn’t expected this. His calculating, mathematical mind had never entered the variable of Moran’s loyalty into his equations. In all the endless strings of numbers he’d scribbled in his notebooks, Moran had never been featured on the page. He’d been off the page, looking cluelessly over Moriarty’s shoulder or lounging in a nearby armchair.  
  
He would only know two more things on the earth, and the reason why Moran had betrayed him was not one of them.  
  
The muzzle of Moran’s Webley was one.  
  
So was the pain in his sniper’s eyes as the pulled the trigger.


	4. Part 4

71\. Struggle

Moran had seen Moriarty pen the words on a piece of scrap paper and weight it down with a rock. Holmes had done the same with his own note. He didn’t think he would have reason to read it.  
  
He was wrong.  
  
The paper, when he did lift it with trepidation, read as follows:

_Dearest Sebastian,_

_I write these words in advance of my impending confrontation with Sherlock Holmes to make known some facts I think it prudent to share. Should our meeting prove fatal for one or more parties, a possibility I have calculated as unlikely yet possible, know that I have provided for your immediate financial needs. Instructions have been left at the Geneva National Bank to allow you access to a safe deposit box in my name. It contains the last of our unseized assets. Should this prove necessary do not hesitate to make use of it, as I cannot guarantee its confidentiality for long._   
  
_In the meantime, as I wait on the precipice above this waterfall, I have been lecturing Mr. Holmes on several shortcomings he has committed in our strange acquaintance. His explanations of them have proved most illuminating, and I daresay I will apply them to future enterprises I may embark on. Though he has given me quite the run for my money, as the saying has it, in the end I have come to deem his methods superficial and his intellect vastly insuperior. He was no match for me, Moran, and I look forward to besting him. Yet should circumstances shift out of my favor, consider this my goodbye. Know that I will have considered you to be my best and closest friend_

And here, there was a hesitation in the penmanship, but eventually written an inch lower down on the page after many scribblings-out was

_and a very dear lover._

_I will remain, ever more, yours,_   
_James Moriarty_

By the end of the letter, his hand was quivering. It was difficult to fold it up and put it in his pocket. He felt numb inside, like he had been out in the cold too long. He struck off down the path quickly, before the numbness could blossom into an ache inside that would cause him to break down completely.

* * *

 

30\. Warmth

The rain was driving, relentless. It had turned a beautiful afternoon into an early night. And Moran had been caught in the middle of it.  
  
Not a hansom or cab was to be seen, having all been snatched up by damp pedestrians heading home from work. Moran was left to put up his collar, pull down his hat, hunch into his jacket and stalk miserably home.  
  
One thing he had definitely not missed in Africa was the English rains.  
  
He arrived at Conduit Street dripping, soaked, and in a thoroughly bad mood, having almost cussed out the landlady for trying to stop him tracking wet footprints into the hall. He was ready to give anyone who crossed him a good right cuff-- even Moriarty, had he been especially callous towards him that night-- but Moran was in for a surprise.  
  
The hearth was roaring cheerily in the flat, and Moriarty was waiting up in his chair, a towel slung over the arm and fresh change of clothes laid out on the sideboard. Without a word he went about tending to a fiercely soaked sniper, and, as it were, taming his mood. As he dried, his brown study dissipated and became a mere slight annoyance, until warmth and the offer of a hot coffee totally won him over.  
  
Now only his hair remained moist and he sat curled up in front of the fire, sipping a black coffee and regarding Moriarty over the rim.  
  
It was incredibly thoughtful of the professor to put this much… well, _thought_ into his wellbeing. And he appreciated it immensely. He just didn’t know what to say. Luckily, the professor didn’t seem to require any words, nor thanks or appreciation. He just sat back in his chair, smiled a strange little smile, and watched the rain pouring against the windows.

* * *

 

5\. Feather

James Moriarty.  
  
A criminal mastermind with a hand in nearly every illegal operation in Britain.  
  
Sitting on a bench in the park.  
  
Feeding the pigeons.  
  
They pecked serenely at the crumbs he spread, and he smiled slightly, quite relaxed and totally at ease.  
  
Suddenly the flock of grey-feathered birds spread their wings and took to the air in a rustling mass, scattered by the disturbance of a man walking through them towards the bench.  
  
A vague frown pulled at Moriarty’s mouth, his habit interrupted.  
  
“Sorry, sir, but I’ve just received a wire from Cardiff. The operation there has gone south. They need you.”  
  
Moriarty sighed and stood. “Fine. Let us go then.”  
  
They had walked a few paces in sync with one another when Moran reached out and plucked something from Moriarty’s hair.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“You had a feather, sir,” Moran said apologetically, holding up the offending object.  
  
“Oh. Very well,” Moriarty said, lapsing into silence, as at ease to be groomed by his sniper as one of the pigeons he was so fond of to be preened.

* * *

 

85\. Courage

Moran raised his champagne glass.  
  
“To the new century.”  
  
Moriarty drank to that.  
  
The unusually large windows of their flat were a perfect place to watch Big Ben and the fireworks that were to be set off in the distance above them. The grandfather clock in the corner near Moriarty’s desk, impeccably synchronous with Big Ben, (Moriarty allowing nothing less), ticked slowly to midnight, until eventually there was only  
  
5...  
  
4...  
  
3...  
  
2...  
  
1...  
  
Midnight. Muffled cheers could be faintly heard over London’s rooftops, and Moriarty and Moran each partook of a slight smile. They both looked over at each other at the same time, and then pretended that they hadn’t caught one another’s gaze. It was awkward, for a moment. They were each thinking of a certain tradition that had yet to be carried out. But while they were thinking, the clock stopped chiming, the fireworks died down, and the cheers dissipated. It was too late to kiss in the New Year, for it was already upon them.  
  
Perhaps they would have more courage next year.

* * *

 

3\. Mock

“Look at that toff,” yelled the street urchin, pointing. He was quickly joined by another, who jeered,  
  
“Oi! You there! Where’d you get such fancy clothes, eh?”  
  
Moriarty and Moran, dressed for the opera, walked by the two dirty boys, for the most part ignoring them.  
  
“Should we let them mock us, sir? I could teach them a lesson in manners, if you want--”  
  
“That won’t be necessary, Moran,” Moriarty soothed. He took his arm and propelled him farther down the street.  
  
“Oh, I see how it is! We’ve got ourselves a couple of nancy boys!  
  
Moran turned bright red, his grip on Moriarty’s arm immediately slackening.  
  
“We are _not_ … damn kids… _why I oughta_ …” he began muttering, darkly and incoherently. He was actually rolling up his sleeves when Moriarty laid a hand on his arm, more forcefully this time.  
  
“That _won’t_ be necessary,” he reiterated firmly. At his master’s look, all the fight drained from Moran.  
  
“Yes, sir,” he said reluctantly.  
  
When they were almost out of the street, he turned to him and said:  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
Moriarty hesitated, a wry smile twisting thin lips.  
  
“A few bruises might teach them a valuable lesson,” he finally allowed, goaded on by Moran’s eager look.  
  
“Right you are, sir!” Moran said, and hurried to fulfill Moriarty’s “suggestion.”

* * *

 

13\. Cheer

The mistletoe turned up over their doorframe quite unexpectedly, a holiday decoration no doubt put in place by the well-intentioned housekeeper. The men of the flat made separate, disparaging references to it, and considered getting rid of it, but ultimately, nothing was done, and the mistletoe remained.  
  
It was inevitable that Moriarty and Moran would end up meeting under it sooner or later. The first couple times could realistically have been contrived as accidents. The third, fourth and fifth times, however, could not. On the sixth time it was Moran who finally broke, pinning Moriarty in place against the doorframe with one hand and demanding breathlessly,  
  
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”  
  
“Nonsense, Moran,” Moriarty replied, for a moment equally breathless before recovering himself. “It’s a pagan tradition I hardly think worth indulging in.”  
  
“Alright then,” Moran said quickly. He stepped aside so Moriarty could enter the flat. He was obviously put out, and endeavoring to hide it, but he was useless at controlling his expression.  
  
Unable to reenter having been so easily rejected, he went out for a ramble about London, going nowhere in particular and put in a markedly uncheerful mood by all the holiday decorations he saw about.  
  
Yet two hours later when Moran came home it was to find that Moriarty was waiting under the mistletoe for him.  
  
“Did you still want that kiss?” Moriarty asked, in his own version of a teasing manner.  
  
“Yes…” Moran replied. As if Moriarty didn’t already know the answer to that. Nevertheless, he was still a bit taken aback at his employer’s sudden change of mood. He joined him under the green sprig carefully, the two men forced very close together in the space of the narrow doorframe.  
  
“I don’t make a habit of this, Moran. Keep that in mind,” Moriarty prefaced, his face inches away from Moran’s. “I shall bestow it as a gesture of holiday cheer, and you should take it as such.”  
  
“I’ll take it any way you offer it, sir,” Moran replied, breathless once again as their lips met: briefly, sweetly, and over far too soon.  
  
“Happy Christmas,” Moriarty whispered against his cheek, before pulling away suddenly.  
  
The next morning, the mistletoe was gone.

* * *

 

77\. Trapped

The long-awaited package arrived at Conduit Street early in the morning, brought up with the toast tray by the housekeeper.  
  
“Oh, goody,” Moran exclaimed, rubbing his hands together with glee like a child. He abandoned his coffee and rushed to the package. Drawing his penknife he cut the strings of the brown paper and swiftly disassembled the box.  
  
Out onto the carpet rolled a magnificent tiger pelt, head, claws and all.  
  
Moran stood up, surveying it proudly, and addressed Moriarty.  
  
“Well, what do you think? One of my own bag. Trapped her in a cage made of nothing but some vines and an old splintered canoe. I’ve been meaning to have it sent over from India, damn sods in the regiment claimed they’d lost it.”  
  
Moriarty took one look and announced,  
  
“That is not going in the living room, Moran.”

* * *

 

26\. Sing

Music filled the opera hall, wafting up to where Moriarty and Moran sat in a high box seat, carefully hand in hand. Any fellow opera patron whose eyes might happen to stray from the lavish constumery on stage would not be able to discern anything out of the ordinary between the two men, but that was how they liked it: discreet, subtle.  
  
As much as attending the opera had evolved from Moriarty’s habit to Moriarty _and_ Moran’s habit, so had the act of holding hands. And even the spectacular singing regularly took a backseat to the simple thrill of two hands joined, a palm against a palm, fingertips against the back of each other’s hand. After a while, when the music began to fade into the background, it became the only reason they went.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of my older work reposted from ff.net. I consider the quality to be a bit lower than the standard of writing I'd like to imagine myself capable of achieving, but they were written for fun and I had fun writing them so I suppose that's all that matters.


End file.
